To people losing weight with 'diets'

It's frustrating to see alot of people try these fad diets, recently I was watching a large youtuber, and he's going on the 'shake' diet, and he claims he will try do it until the day he dies. It's seriously things like this that hinder people from losing weight, it's upsetting people get drawn into this sort of crap out of desperation. If you're going to go on a 'diet' it should never be a diet, it should be a lifestyle change, it took me quite awhile to figure this out myself, but in reality, you're going to put your weight back on if you try to cheat, it's all too common that people are being drawn into unrealistic programs which offer weightloss which is at an unhealthy level. Most people do get results, but you can't live with the diet plan for the rest of your life, somewhere along the line, your body is going to cry out for change, and when that happens, the damage is already done from the diet, and you will gain more weight than ever expected, if you're losing weight, please, I ask you go and research some healthy foods, and just start eating healthy, no more scam diets, just healthy eating and exercise is more than enough to lose weight.

People call them crash diets for a reason and they are incredibly unhealthy due to the lack of nutrients.

Health is a lifestyle and should be attentive at all times, there is no easy way out of gaining improved health. You can have a treat from time to time but you have to know what your actually eating for the most part to maintain good health.

In most cases, just like 20 min of good sweaty exercise everyday will have a more profound effect on losing weight than changing your diet(unless you are opting for a very unhealthy crash diet). That said changing your diet will have a very profound effect on how you feel throughout the day. Getting proper nutrition and enough fluids will give you more energy, combined with exercise you will sleep better and feel better.

The problem is that most people will either give up if they don't see the change right away, and others will quit once they see enough change and just rebound back later. Finding a way to still enjoy eating while getting proper nutrition, and a good way to exercise that isn't going to burn you out will make things a lot easier.

I tried losing weight (from like 180lbs to 160lbs - that was my goal) by doing boot camp, swim once a week etc etc. The only healthy choice on campus was subway and I was too lazy to make anything from home.

Finally gave in and tried the atkins diet for 1 month. Lost 14 lbs in the first two weeks. Lost the next 6 lbs in the next two weeks. Now to control my weight I am on a loose low carb diet. I read labels, only looking at carbs. No liquid sugar (pop and nearly all juices). No real amounts of breads or starches. Tons of vegetables and meat. I eat less than or equal to 100g of carbs a day.

Boot camp 3 times a week for 6 months and I never lost anything. Cut out the massive amounts of sugar that I usually consumed did it in an instant.

Edit: And its not that I was trying to eat tons of sugar, but once I started reading labels it really made me start to realize just how much sugar was put in everything. It started to make me search out the sugarless versions of stuff like mayonnaise, pickles, juices, mustard (why the fuck add sugar to that anyways?).

I tried losing weight (from like 180lbs to 160lbs - that was my goal) by doing boot camp, swim once a week etc etc. The only healthy choice on campus was subway and I was too lazy to make anything from home.

Finally gave in and tried the atkins diet for 1 month. Lost 14 lbs in the first two weeks. Lost the next 6 lbs in the next two weeks. Now to control my weight I am on a loose low carb diet. I read labels, only looking at carbs. No liquid sugar (pop and nearly all juices). No real amounts of breads or starches. Tons of vegetables and meat. I eat less than or equal to 100g of carbs a day.

Boot camp 3 times a week for 6 months and I never lost anything. Cut out the massive amounts of sugar that I usually consumed did it in an instant.

I tried losing weight (from like 180lbs to 160lbs - that was my goal) by doing boot camp, swim once a week etc etc. The only healthy choice on campus was subway and I was too lazy to make anything from home.

Finally gave in and tried the atkins diet for 1 month. Lost 14 lbs in the first two weeks. Lost the next 6 lbs in the next two weeks. Now to control my weight I am on a loose low carb diet. I read labels, only looking at carbs. No liquid sugar (pop and nearly all juices). No real amounts of breads or starches. Tons of vegetables and meat. I eat less than or equal to 100g of carbs a day.

Boot camp 3 times a week for 6 months and I never lost anything. Cut out the massive amounts of sugar that I usually consumed did it in an instant.

Edit: And its not that I was trying to eat tons of sugar, but once I started reading labels it really made me start to realize just how much sugar was put in everything. It started to make me search out the sugarless versions of stuff like mayonnaise, pickles, juices, mustard (why the fuck add sugar to that anyways?).

Zzz.... low carb/atkins DOES NOT make you lose fat faster than eating healthy. It makes you lose WEIGHT faster. Losing weight is a stupid goal. Your goal should be to lower your body fat to an acceptable level. If I had to guess, out of those 20 lbs you lost, approximately 15-18 of it was water weight. It is virtually impossible to lose more than 3 lbs a week of fat and extremely hard to lose even 1.5 lbs. Most athletes do not cut more than 2 lbs a week and they lose a significant amount of LBM in the process.

I have been drinking almost 3-4 litters of water per day, eating only spaghetti every day for lunch and dinner, along with hamburger or white mean and I feel like I have lost some weight, not anything serious, not that I am overweight or anything, I only have about 68 kgs but I noticed the difference...

So, I don't understand, I can do, why people do these diets when all they have to do is probably go to a gym and just starting eating seriously healthy for the rest of their life and lots of water.

Lose Weight With Frozen Foods!

Originally Posted by Majad

I have been drinking almost 3-4 litters of water per day, eating only spaghetti every day for lunch and dinner, along with hamburger or white mean and I feel like I have lost some weight, not anything serious, not that I am overweight or anything, I only have about 68 kgs but I noticed the difference...

So, I don't understand, I can do, why people do these diets when all they have to do is probably go to a gym and just starting eating seriously healthy for the rest of their life and lots of water.

Along with regular exercise, I eat frozen meals on a daily basis, it supplements my meals with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. Since they are low in calories and high in sodium content, I don't need to worry about weight gain too!

Zzz.... low carb/atkins DOES NOT make you lose fat faster than eating healthy. It makes you lose WEIGHT faster. Losing weight is a stupid goal. Your goal should be to lower your body fat to an acceptable level. If I had to guess, out of those 20 lbs you lost, approximately 15-18 of it was water weight. It is virtually impossible to lose more than 3 lbs a week of fat and extremely hard to lose even 1.5 lbs. Most athletes do not cut more than 2 lbs a week and they lose a significant amount of LBM in the process.

It does -- this is because insulin and glucagon play a big role in bf% loss; low carb/high fat is the weapon of mass destruction of fat loss. Also, your idea of 'eating healthy' amuses me, lots of carbs yum yum!

Last edited by racist blackman; 2012-10-24 at 10:43 PM.

"It's only after we've lost everything that we are free to do anything" -Tyler fucking Durden!

[/COLOR]It does -- this is because insulin and glucagon play a big role in bf% loss; low carb/high fat is the weapon of mass destruction of fat loss. Also, your idea of 'eating healthy' amuses me, lots of carbs yum yum!

There have been no studies that even suggest this in healthy individuals. The only studies that I have read that suggest this is in people who are insulin resistant (type 2 diabetics, for instance). BTW, I don't eat carbs other than fruits and vegetables because I don't like bread/pasta/etc and tend to overeat them and I am not a competitive athlete anymore. When I use to compete, however, I would eat a ton of pasta. Carbs help SOOO much in your energy level it isn't even funny. Oh, and I was thinnest when I ate carbs (6% body fat). Go figure. Would I suggest people eat tons of carbs? No, I think carbs tend to be overeaten by people. Do I think you can eat carbs and lose weight? Of course, you just have to weigh everything carefully. It is surprising how little pasta equals 500 calories.

Atkins is not healthy mostly because it is very hard to eat an atkins diet socially and you have to deal with a few weeks of feeling like absolute horse shit before your body gets use to a purely ketogenic diet.

I tried losing weight (from like 180lbs to 160lbs - that was my goal) by doing boot camp, swim once a week etc etc. The only healthy choice on campus was subway and I was too lazy to make anything from home.

Finally gave in and tried the atkins diet for 1 month. Lost 14 lbs in the first two weeks. Lost the next 6 lbs in the next two weeks. Now to control my weight I am on a loose low carb diet. I read labels, only looking at carbs. No liquid sugar (pop and nearly all juices). No real amounts of breads or starches. Tons of vegetables and meat. I eat less than or equal to 100g of carbs a day.

Boot camp 3 times a week for 6 months and I never lost anything. Cut out the massive amounts of sugar that I usually consumed did it in an instant.

Edit: And its not that I was trying to eat tons of sugar, but once I started reading labels it really made me start to realize just how much sugar was put in everything. It started to make me search out the sugarless versions of stuff like mayonnaise, pickles, juices, mustard (why the fuck add sugar to that anyways?).

6 times a week of boot camp and lots of running would most likely have worked, though. after all, it's not like it's impossible, i can assure you that if you'd go in the military you'd lose weight, although doing that just to lose weight would be stupid haha

6 times a week of boot camp and lots of running would most likely have worked, though. after all, it's not like it's impossible, i can assure you that if you'd go in the military you'd lose weight, although doing that just to lose weight would be stupid haha

People in the military tend to have fairly high body fat %... definitely tend not to be in the single digits.

The only way to lose weight is on a calorie controlled diet with a basic knowledge of food and potentially exercise. The majority of the public are too stupid or weak minded to bother going out and doing the necessary research because they have been babied their wholes lives by others and commercials telling them the only thing that works is the fad diets. Fad diets on work when by chance the amount of calories they provide on a daily basis is just enough to allow the person to lose weight, however because the person essentially knows nothing about fitness they will reach a plateau phase and be stuck there like an idiot.

Weight loss is so easy you'd have to literally be retarded or ignorant beyond belief not to succeed at it.

Originally Posted by jbhasban

There have been no studies that even suggest this in healthy individuals. The only studies that I have read that suggest this is in people who are insulin resistant (type 2 diabetics, for instance). BTW, I don't eat carbs other than fruits and vegetables because I don't like bread/pasta/etc and tend to overeat them and I am not a competitive athlete anymore. When I use to compete, however, I would eat a ton of pasta. Carbs help SOOO much in your energy level it isn't even funny. Oh, and I was thinnest when I ate carbs (6% body fat). Go figure. Would I suggest people eat tons of carbs? No, I think carbs tend to be overeaten by people. Do I think you can eat carbs and lose weight? Of course, you just have to weigh everything carefully. It is surprising how little pasta equals 500 calories.

Atkins is not healthy mostly because it is very hard to eat an atkins diet socially and you have to deal with a few weeks of feeling like absolute horse shit before your body gets use to a purely ketogenic diet.

Where are these "studies" you're reading? Are they what ever you can google, or from bodybuilding.com? Those aren't studies, those are articles written by people paraphrasing stuff they don't understand vaguely or with bias. If you have access to a college/university then you'll have access to all the scientific databases that costs hundreds of dollars a year to subscribe. There you'll actually find that insulin does promote fat gain in a variety of mechanisms which are inherent to it's physiological nature.

The only correct diet where you keep your weight low (or healthy) is the one where you change your eating habits, not those that require you to drink shakes or eat no carbs. Eat 3-4 times a day, with about 3 hours between (healthy) meals. Keep snacks (fastfood, candy, cookies etc) to a minimum and you'll lose weight at a good pace. Even starving yourself wont make you lose weight as fast as this. Oh and don't eat anything anymore about 3 hours before you go to sleep.

The only correct diet where you keep your weight low (or healthy) is the one where you change your eating habits, not those that require you to drink shakes or eat no carbs. Eat 3-4 times a day, with about 3 hours between (healthy) meals. Keep snacks to a minimum and you'll lose weight at a good pace. Even starving yourself wont make you lose weight as fast as this. Oh and don't eat anything anymore about 3 hours before you go to sleep.

The vast majority of that is misinformation and broscience, the only people who would lose weight on such a diet are those that are extremely overweight who require a large amount of calories each day to maintain their fat bulk. That could could only lead to minor short term success.

The vast majority of that is misinformation and broscience, the only people who would lose weight on such a diet are those that are extremely overweight who require a large amount of calories each day to maintain their fat bulk. That could could only lead to minor short term success.

Then add regular exercise to that so ppl who are not grossly overweight still drop a few kilo's. Or drink a few cups of greenleaf tea per day.

The only way to lose weight is on a calorie controlled diet with a basic knowledge of food and potentially exercise. The majority of the public are too stupid or weak minded to bother going out and doing the necessary research because they have been babied their wholes lives by others and commercials telling them the only thing that works is the fad diets. Fad diets on work when by chance the amount of calories they provide on a daily basis is just enough to allow the person to lose weight, however because the person essentially knows nothing about fitness they will reach a plateau phase and be stuck there like an idiot.

Where are these "studies" you're reading? Are they what ever you can google, or from bodybuilding.com? Those aren't studies, those are articles written by people paraphrasing stuff they don't understand vaguely or with bias. If you have access to a college/university then you'll have access to all the scientific databases that costs hundreds of dollars a year to subscribe. There you'll actually find that insulin does promote fat gain in a variety of mechanisms which are inherent to it's physiological nature.

Conclusion: Participants lost more fat than lean mass after consumption of all diets, with no differences in changes in body composition, abdominal fat, or hepatic fat between assigned macronutrient amounts. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00072995.

I can go on and on if you want. I have read the insulin studies that you are referring to but all they show is that higher insulin levels are associated with fat gain/retention. Which, honestly, isn't a big surprising considering people who eat a lot tend to have higher insulin levels. In addition, you cannot simply look at how insulin effects fat gain without also looking at the rest of the body. Perhaps insulin does make you retain fat. Perhaps it also promotes another hormone that makes you lose fat. The only way to truly test these diets is through clinical trials of people on such diets, not through looking at mechanisms. Mechanisms are interesting but until we have a complete view of the human body, which we are woefully far away from, they are nothing more. They cannot be used to extrapolate conclusions.

BTW, I am a highly educated professional. Do not think I would believe for a second something I read on a bodybuilding website without first checking its source.

I realize that none of these studies tested the traditional 0-10% carbohydrates that atkins promotes so it is entirely possible that once you reach a certain threshold of carbohydrates/insulin, it makes no difference whether you have more. However, such an interpretation strikes me as quite odd and less logical than my belief that our understanding of the insulin mechanisms is simply woefully inadequate.

BTW, google scholar has a surprising number of free articles. But I do have access to Yale's library for when I run into an article I cannot get "for free".

In rats, atkins diet resulted in body weight loss (not body fat percentage decrease) and then in body weight gain above and beyond the baseline. Essentially atkins creates a situation where the rats would gain weight once they returned to a regular diet despite the fact that they were eating less calories than the control group.

In rats, maintenance on the low carb, high fat diet (LC-HFD) in combination with forced daily exercise did not impact exercise capacity (total distance and meters per minute). Additionally consumption of an extreme LC-HFD in combination with daily exercise resulted in significantly less body weight gain but increased fat mass. When combined with daily exercise this diet clearly had a negative impact on body composition, but did not affect exercise capacity.

Body Weight (note, this is another rat study, hard to find good human studies in this field)

Restriction to 65% of ad libitum energy intake resulted in significant decreases in body weight. There was no significant difference in the amount of body weight lost and percentage of body weight lost between the low carb (LC) and high carb (HC) groups. Feeding low-carbohydrate and high-carbohydrate diets ad libitum in human subjects resulted in significant weight loss with either diet, but there was no difference in the amount of weight loss between the two diets (36, 37, 38).

Body Composition

Ten weeks of LC or HC energy-restricted intake resulted in body composition changes indicating significant decreases in lean mass (LM) and fat mass (FM). Post-restriction LM was not different between the two groups. The post-restriction HC group had significantly fewer PO, PR, and SC (note, these are different abdominal fat regions) depots and less FM than the LC group. Both restricted diet groups lost similar amounts of body weight, but the HC group had decreased FM compared with the LC group. In contrast, in other studies there was no difference in adipose tissue between human subjects assigned to low- or high-carbohydrate diets (18, 36). However, the macronutrient composition of those low-carbohydrate diets was very different compared with our study. The diet compositions in our study were selected to match the Atkins diet (LC) and the ADA diet (HC). This current study suggests that macronutrient composition of the diet affects fat use in the HC compared with the LC group resulting in decreased FM and improved body composition.

The triglyceride (TG) content of the PO was significantly reduced after restricted feeding, and the DNA content was unchanged, suggesting that the cell number remained the same concomitant with a decrease in adipocyte volume. Energy restriction in female rats has been shown to preserve PO, PR, and SC fat cell number while decreasing fat cell volume (39). Our lower total PO weight in the HC compared with the LC group resulted from decreased adipocyte volume with no change in cell number (DNA). It is speculated that the decrease in adipose tissue mass for the SC and PR depots also resulted from decreased adipocyte volume. This increased use of stored TG and decreased adipocyte volume in the HC compared with the LC group supports the decreased FM and improved body composition.

Kinda odd that all these rat studies are showing that rats tend to have lower body-fat on high carbs than on low carbs. Is it possible that humans are different? Of course.

Low-carbohydrate diets have been thought as an alternative to a low-fat diet for producing weight loss and fat losses (Krieger et al. 2006). Thus, Gardner et al. (2007) carried out a comparison of the four weight-loss diets representing a spectrum of low to high carbohydrate intake: Atkins (very low in carbohydrate), Zone (low in carbohydrate), LEARN Lifestyle, Exercise, Attitudes, Relationships, and Nutrition; low in fat, high in carbohydrate, based on national guidelines, and Ornish (very high in carbohydrate). In this review study, premenopausal overweight and obese women assigned to follow the Atkins diet, which had the lowest carbohydrate intake, lost more weight and experienced more favorable overall metabolic effects at 12 months than women assigned to follow the Zone, Ornish, or LEARN diets (Gardner et al. 2007). Additionally, several studies on short-term carbohydrate restriction have shown significant improvements in lipid profile and glycemic control, and greater weight loss or even in the absence of weight loss (Yancy et al. 2004; Feinman and Volek 2006; Nordmann et al. 2006). In other investigation, long-term adherence (up to 22 months) to a carbohydrate-restricted diet, with less than 20% of energy intake coming from carbohydrates, appeared to be effective in obese people with type 2 diabetes, as evidenced by the absence of negative cardiovascular outcomes (Nielsen and Joensson 2006). Equally, the effect of long-term (>1 year) consumption of a low-carbohydrate high-fat diet does not induce deleterious metabolic effects and does not increase the risk for cardiovascular disease as evidenced by maintenance of adequate glycemic control and relatively low values for conventional cardiovascular risk factors (Grieb et al. 2008). Recently, a low-carbohydrate diet based on the consumption of low-glycemic index (GI) vegetables with unrestricted consumption of fat and protein vs. a low-fat diet consisted of limited energy intake (1,200–1,800 kcal/day; ≤30% calories from fat), both diets successfully achieved weight loss. Moreover, low-carbohydrate diet was associated with favorable changes in cardiovascular disease risk factors after 2 years (Foster et al. 2010).

However, limitations of these studies include that it could not be determined whether the benefits were attributable specifically to the low carbohydrate intake or are due to other aspects of the diet (e.g., high protein intake, specific dietary fat, satiety). Additional information is necessary about the impact of very low carbohydrate diets during weight maintenance due to some undesirable effects reported such as increased levels of ketone bodies, high losses of body water, headache, constipation, and lipid abnormalities (Abete et al. 2010).

So yeah, studies show atkins is better for obese people but has some significant flaws indicated above. In addition, none of the studies showed what happens when these dieters started eating normally.

I'm not looking forward to seeing the consequences of gastric bypass and all those operations in the long run. I actually know 2 people whom had this operation, and one is now COMPLETELY fixated around food. Her skin hangs and sags around her body making her feel even more uncomfortable than her excess weight used to. If I can't reach her on the phone, then I know she's spending time writing down what she can't and can eat during the day...and the next...

The other person, a man had this operation and on top of all that extra skin he's gotten from losing weight in such a speedy manner, he's also miserable because it has dawned on him that he'll NEVER EVER be able to enjoy what he used to. His more active lifestyle would leave room form a spot of fun at the pub once a month, or having a kebab with his friends after a nice day of hard work...he'll never be able to do this again because if he drinks alcohol or eat spicy food, his stomach now goes into fullblown mayhem mode and he actually got stranded at the hospital for 3 days one time after trying whiskey. Something went wrong surely when he was operated, but...it can't be fixed. They can't restore it.

Excess access to lots and lots of fatty foods and a still lifestyle being promoted by our society = these things will just get more common...quick fixes with surgery.

Lifestyle change, long-term change of attitude and priorities = the only thing that will work in the long run. I also know a woman that lost all her weight by doing this, and she's got VERY minor amounts of extra skin (and it's getting tighter with focused training) and her new lifestyle means she can enjoy the things she used to, without gaining weight. She accomplished this in 3 years, slowly but steadily. This woman is my aunt.